


The heat of the moment, the calm after.

by Royalwriter



Series: BeauJester Week 2019 [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Battle, F/F, Feelings, First Kiss, Healing, They talk about their feelings and process things in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalwriter/pseuds/Royalwriter
Summary: "It’s there, staring at Jester who’s cackling and covered in blood that Beau feels truly alive. There’s adrenaline still surging in her veins and there’s a fight still waging behind them, but fuck it. She’s newly healed and high on the thrill of the fight and they could both die in the next two minutes, and there’s nothing either of them of them can do if that’s how the battle turns.So, fuck it.Beau grabs Jester by the shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss."During battle, Beau and Jester kiss. Later, they find a way to talk about it.





	The heat of the moment, the calm after.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for Beaujester week! This is my first time ever doing a fic week so I hope you guys enjoy this, and the fics to come!

The force of the spell sends Beau flying back, her vision flickering. The spell’s impact alone almost knocks her out, and she can tell another hit will take her down. Hells, the wall her body is hurtling towards might just do it.

She closes her eyes to brace for the harsh stone, but instead is sent tumbling into the soft, candy scented body of Jester.

“Oof. I got you Beau!” Jester squeaks, stumbling back.

“Thanks, Jessie.” Beau’s voice is tight with pain.

“Do you need healing? I have healing!” Jester offers. Before Beau can reply, Jester’s hand glows, and Beau’s wounds stitch themselves back up.

She feels worlds better.

“Tha—” Beau gets cut off as one of the direwolf-like fiends makes a leap for her back. She spins, catching it in the teeth with her staff. It snarls and bites down.

When it does, she uses one hand to hold it up, and the other to snap it in the throat. It whimpers, but doesn’t fall, so she digs deep to hit it another time, managing to toss it away from her at least for the moment.

From behind her comes a muttering, and Jester’s familiar giant lollipop appears in front of Beau. Beau takes a step back just as it swings in front of her, smacking the wolf twice before the wolf gives one last whine and collapses in a pool of its own blood.

“Jes, that was sick!” Beau shouts, turning back to her.

It’s there, staring at Jester who’s cackling and covered in blood that Beau feels truly alive. There’s adrenaline still surging in her veins and there’s a fight still waging behind them, but fuck it. She’s newly healed and high on the thrill of the fight and they could both die in the next two minutes, and there’s nothing either of them of them can do if that’s how the battle turns.

So, fuck it.

Beau grabs Jester by the shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss.

Jester squeaks, and the first pass at it is a little too awkward, battle adrenaline keeping both of them too stiff to fully relax.They get it on the second pass though.

They both taste too much like blood, and iron and the edges of magic linger on Jester’s tongue. Beau’s slept with enough spellcasters to know how so many rituals warp the edges of their tongues.

When they pull away they’re even more breathless than they were from the fight. It takes a moment of both of them staring at each other before they pull out of their stupor. Well, a moment of staring and a shout from Caleb.

“A little help here? They’re, ah, they’re still fighting us!”

“Oh, shit!” Beau crosses the room in three seconds to get to Caleb, smacking the spellcaster with her staff in an attempt to stun them.

“No! Bad warlock!” She catches a glance of Jester, still a little nervous, looking over her shoulder.

“Jessie! We’ll talk later okay? Promise.”

“What if we all die?” 

“Better make fucking sure we live then, huh?” Beau says.

“I will!” Jester promises.

* * *

It’s later, long after the fighting has ceased and they’re back in their house, and Jester can’t stop pacing nervously. The warlock they’d fought had been summoning more demons from the abyssal plane, but through a method they hadn’t seen before.

And Jester’s sure that Beau hadn’t meant to run off and leave her, but by the time they got home Caleb and her were so wrapped up in their discussion of his summoning device that they’d vanished into the War Room and left her outside.

That had been fine, Jester could wait. Wait, and keep pressing her fingers to her lips where Beau kissed her. Wait and pretend that her heart isn’t still fluttering.

Finally, her pacing sets something off in Yasha.

“Jessie, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing! Why would anything be wrong? I’m great!” Jester lies, badly.

Yasha raises an eyebrow.

“Even _I_ know something’s off, what’s wrong?”

“Well—” And then Jester’s talking, because she knows Yasha, and she trusts Yasha, and maybe Yasha will have some idea of how to fix this mess of a situation. “It’s just that Beau and I earlier, well, we kissed during the fight— You probably saw, and she said we would talk, but now she’s distracted and I’m worried she doesn’t actually want to talk— you know, that Caleb is just an excuse and—”

Yasha cuts her off.

“Jester, I don’t think that is what’s happening. Beau gets distracted, sometimes pretty easily.”

“Do you really think so? What do you think I should do, Yasha?”

“Well— I think you should go talk to her. Then you’ll know, either way.”

The tone of Yasha’s voice settles Jester, at least a little bit.

“Okay, I will. Thank you, Yasha.”

“Of course, Jester.”

Jester approaches the door to the War Room, sending a quick prayer to the Traveler to please, pretty please with powdered sugar on top make Beau want to talk to her or warn her if she doesn’t.

She pushes the door open. Beau and Caleb are both still pouring over notes, talking loudly. It sounds almost like an argument, but between the two of them it’s difficult to make out what’s an actual fight and what’s Caleb desperate to be heard over Beau.

“Beau?” Jester calls, too quietly at first, “Beau? Can we talk about earlier?”

“Jess, about—” The request hits Beau, then, and her whole expression changes. “Yes! Absolutely, shit, yeah! Sorry, we got caught up and— Caleb, you’re still here?”

Caleb looks rather baffled, “Well you never asked me to leave, and Jester just got here, should I go?”

“Yes obviously! Pervert, go, get out—” Beau swats at Caleb until he stands and chases him from the room while Jester giggles. “Get out of here! Nasty! You can’t be here for this, I’ll just die!”

“You should be careful, you might accidentally knock him out,” Jester teases.

“He’s tougher than he looks. ‘Sides, you can fix him if I do.”

“I’m fresh out of spell slots after that battle, I might not be able to, actually.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I left him standing then.” Beau shuffles some books and papers out of the way to sit on the desk, suddenly self conscious. “So.”

“So—” Jester responds, staring at her hands.

“About earlier—” Beau starts. Jester actually cut her off, which is a first.

“Did it actually mean anything? It’s okay, if not. Did you kiss me because you like me or because I almost died?” 

“I like you, Jester. I like you a lot. If that’s— okay, I mean. I don’t want to put any pressure on you, if it was that for you.”

“No, no! It wasn’t. It’s kind of silly. I just worried that maybe it was like— well, you know how Fjord kissed me during that one battle just to get some air? And obviously that didn’t really mean anything, but I kinda sorta hoped it might for a little bit, silly me, but I, uh—” Jester wraps a piece of hair around her finger absentmindedly. “This wasn’t something like that, though? You do maybe want to kiss me again?”

Beau’s face falls. Jester’s worried she might have ruined the moment, until a soft smile curls at the edge of Beau’s lips.

“Jessie, no, this isn’t that. I would fucking love to kiss you again, anytime you want, battle or otherwise.”

“What about now?”

“I can fit it in.” And Beau closes the already close distance between them, pressing her lips to Jester’s. It’s different, outside the heat of battle. There’s no monsters to send artificial adrenaline coursing through her veins.

There’s less desperation behind it this time. It’s soft, and slow, and Jester thinks the authors of the stories she’s read have never kissed anyone they love, because they would have described it better if they had. Nothing she’s read holds a candle to this, not even close. She wants to do this for the rest of her life, but right now will just have to do.


End file.
